nesting

i wanted to build a mobile
to live over my head like afterlife.
a lady who falls from the top
of the building each night
is trying to be a swallow.
i fill my pockets with garbage 
& glass shards from the sidewalk.
sometimes i fantasize about 
going out every morning
& collecting trash. what makes 
a neighborhood beautiful?
the trash cans fill with scissors.
i buy another lighter & flick it
as if i might be able to make
a sun all on my own.
my lover tells me every night
that the world will be over
in thirty years. i turn off 
my listening. i walk out to
the nearest swing set & pretend
i am a lost girl. more garbage.
i'm collecting for a future nest.
that's how the birds are coping.
they stuff doritos bags 
between twigs. they gnaw on
fractured chicken bones.
raise their young within 
a torrent of brevity. tell them
"tomorrow we will be air." 
a good breeze is full of centuries
of birds. i wish i had that lineage.
hollow wishes & a grandmother 
who didn't live like an obelisk.
instead, i am human & making a nest
isn't in my blood. i watch the birds
to learn. pick up a shattered cell phone
that keeps ringing. i just want
to answer. on the other end
i picture of a room full of pigeons.
lets never go for a walk alone.
at night, the park is full of sneakers.
you sleep cradling a pillow
as if it were a baby. you do not know
you are doing this. sense memory
or something else. i toss rocks
in the creek. i will come home soon
with what i found.

my father's birthday

he opens a his gift to find
a butchered rabbit. we have been
hunting all our lives for something
to sacrifice to him.
sometimes i cut down trees
& i call him & tell him what i have done.
he shakes his head like a bowl
of marbles. we used to go fishing
in the dew-slick summer morning.
stuck potato rolls to the end
of hooks. fished little girls
out of the lake & put them
in the cooler for later. a beer can holder
with his name on it. the basement where
he used to carry the hooks 
to clean them. i cut my hair myself
& watched as the pieces 
would turn into moths. my father
he hates being alive. sometimes 
i'd catch him standing on the roof
& trying to jump off. only, every attempt
a flock of crows would catch & save him.
he is a year older which also means
i am a year younger. soon i will be
just a pair of shut eyes.
we turned over rocks in search 
of pair tongues. something to say to him.
i write "son" on the soles of my feet.
walk as long as i can until
the words are rubbed off. he hunches 
his shoulders like a boulder.
eats from the cake using his hands.
as if it were a carcass. as if we were
vultures & not brothers. there comes a point
when your father is your brother
& your brother is a head of cabbage.
someone sits me on the kitchen table
& works to pry each skirt away.
i am washing his shoes in the river.
he is sleeping like a drawer full of candles.

dressing 

the trees are transitioning.
they are not calling their parents 
& they are not asking 
if their voices sound real. spitting flowers
at the sidewalk. some are taking hormones
& asking others if they look different yet.
i go outside to join them carrying baskets
of my clothes for them to choose from.
hats & jeans & ruffled dresses.
i help dress them. three hats here.
a velvet skirt. a boot on a branch. 
wishing i had a burrow i could have
climbed into where only rabbits
could see what a gender could do to a person.
i'm at the point where all i can think of 
is dressing. what shapes are living
beneath my skin. when i hear "man"
i picture triangles. woman, circles.
myself, a rhombus.
the trees are walking down to the park
in their new clothes. they want
to wash their faces in the creek. 
i used to take off my shoes by the edge 
& wade in. my baptism of birds & bees.
my gender would wash off & i would 
have to spend all night gluing it back
into place. the trees decide 
they want more than this. they want
faces & lips. i tell them that gender
is not housed in the face but
in the fingers & they already have those. 
sun across their shoulders.
they give me leaves. cough up mulberries.
talk about flying to another country
where a surgeon will know 
how to dig the gender they want
out of their bark. we all are doing 
our best gender at any given moment.
except for me. i am tired 
& watching the trees makes me feel exhausted.
i tell the trees my gender is just
over-worked. i want to bury it 
in the yard at their feet. maybe they can
pull it up through their roots.
make use of all my night aches & headlights.
i tell them the best thing i have ever done
was be trans. they lift me up
like a collared shirt. put blossom 
in my hair. i feel my gender again
like a knot of green. a bird's nest.
a beautiful little something. then, gone. 

bobbin keeper

when my fingers were tangerines
i kept a heart of needles 
to pull from. chopped down a tree
& feasted on the wood. 
where do you keep your smallness 
& your sturdy need to mend?
i tear holes in the ceiling
just to fish for stars.
squid as bait. waiting on a dock
made of thread. on days like this
i look back on my life in a planetarium.
thousands of miles away a girl
is trying to sew a mountain.
or else she is crossing a highway 
to look down at the town 
with binoculars made of dead fish.
wine glasses repurposed as 
snake burials. she believes she can
one day sew all of her clothes
from nothing but dead birds.
finds a dead deer to crawl inside.
warmth is something earned.
opening a window to let all the newts in.
they sprawl out & drink heat.
my life fits in a trunk.
underneath a staircase. in the basement
next to boxes of mildew adorned
holidays decorations. there, 
i find a single black thread bobbin.
place it under my tongue.
the next person to hear me 
will have their feet stitched 
into the downy floor of my orbit.
i want to be loved by 
a complete stranger. i want them
to carry my little voice
in the wallet until the day
they are dead birds too. 

turbine

making butter from the wind,
we stand in the forest of mills. 
i want to be the electricity 
that comes from dead ancient.
i put a light bulb to your tongue
& it glows enough to last the night.
i am always just trying to reach
the next morning. 
a fire made of lizard tails
lives beneath the house.
we will sonn have to be renewable  
or, in other words, some of us
will live in the treadmill garden.
some of us will hold a microphone
to the sun. i am trying to become
a city all by myself. open my mouth
& make a tunnel. transit with 
carnations. a spearmint bush growing
out of control. there are
more than enough highways. 
i make one into a belt. crossing
bridges between eyes. i have
a lighter for the kindling. 
i have a bowl to catch the baby.
melons that started as caught breaths.
all i want is to live without
fear of the next. next sugar.
next house. next night. next bed.
the birds no longer migrate because
of the huge turbines. if they did
they would be sliced into 
smaller & smaller creatures.
field mice say a prayer.
a cat licks her paws clean 
of all decision. we drill a hole
in the backyard looking for water
or oil, either will do. we find neither.
just bones of another planet.
use them to build a generator.
anything can be diminished
to a brief flash of light. in the oven
perches an alarm clock. 
i pluck a turbine to find
it's just a pinwheel. we are 
going to be so hungry by the time
the moon is ripe again. 
learning to feast on rain or
wild onions. the outlets are talking.
i shove a plug in each 
to shut them up.

rabbit's foot harvest

we must take control
of our own luck. in the graveyard
we look for rabbits recently returned
from their convening with the dead.
pick a set of rules & believe in it.
slaughter on fridays. on fridays
when it rains. on friday the 13ths.
i had a friend once who had
a purple rabbit's foot. 
she wore it as a keychain on her backpack 
& told me there was a rabbit limping
in the yard, watching her, waiting
to steal the charm back. aren't we all
waiting to take a limb back?
soon it will be a full moon or 
a new moon. soon there will be 
a cross-eyed man to do the deed. 
shape-shifting witch who walks 
along the edge of the cornfields
with only one hand. what does it mean 
to steal from another's body to keep our own?
all i want is assurance that tonight
the world will not swallow me.
i want to eat oranges. i want to sleep heavy
& easy so i create a ceremony from which luck 
will fall like a dead tree.
shot with a silver bullet. the rabbit
always running from the meanings
of her skeleton. hiding in her hollow 
& counting her legs. one, two, three, four.
sometimes my eyes fill with fingers 
& i am also a rabbit with four feet
for the taking. then, limping in my friend's 
front yard. once bones are taken they are 
never our own again. i put my finger bones
in a box & set it on a porch.
the house was full of rabbits.
apologies almost always come 
too late. it is not a friday. the moon is
thin & haggard. we buried the purple foot.
did not cry in front of each other
but later wept in our homes
thinking of the animal circling the house
craving the body she one had.
maybe luck is always something taken. 

virtual love poem

i want to put my love
on a hard drive. carry it around
like a lost tooth.
in the distance, there is always
a www. where i can go to talk to
an old mouth of mine.
you used to lie face-up
in chat boxes, telling me 
"all i can see is nuclear."
fire works cross my screen.
it is a celebratory window.
typing. someone is typing. i want to be
the reason for a shut down.
your feet dangling over the edge.
the URLs i wore as anklets.
necklace of search histories.
who isn't dressing for the machine?
our first date. everything i wanted
lived in between the glow 
of advertisements. buying a new 
pair of eyes. washing beneath fingernails.
scrolling into your passions.
carrying hearts like a worm.
another & another. until the blood
is dirt. i sit outside to get
a better signal. plug myself 
into the soil. there is electric
inside every living thing.
virtual in the trees. clutching
a potato to get back to you.
digital bird falling into
a bad link. there we are. talking to
an AI about God. the robot admits
she has nothing at all left to say.
i am the virtual or you are too.
you are still typing & even the moon
has logged off. search engines 
in the basement. i walk down
holding a candle, looking.
trying to figure out
how i am going to touch you
or if i should consider 
the screen enough. warming my hands 
in the internet's light. 
you are not there at all. 
i find a picture of you though
or else it's just
what i want you to look like.
green & with a download. 
in another rendering you will hold me
& i will be just your exit.
once & then gone. windows fall away
like domino doors. i want you.
i want you to be real so badly. 

wish cavern

i'm taking my coins.
in my pocket their faces talk
about promised lands.
manna garland-hanging.
i roll my wants up
into beach towels 
& stuff them where no one else will see.
dreaming becomes more dangerous
each & every pinwheel.
yesterday i set a bondfire
inside a balloon.
god is playing the trick
where the table is set
& the clothe is yanked out
from underneath.
there is a dairy farm where
all the cows spill nectar.
we bring our buckets.
flowers for their eyes.
once i drank a can of soda
full of bees as penanace.
for weeks my throat hummed.
i found honey beneath
my fingernails. i have yet to decide
if it would be better 
if wishes didn't come to me
like depths. drilling deeper & deeper
until they are the home of
skeleton eco systems.
cave fish & bats. 
i take a flash light & go
searching for an off switch.
the basement floods 
with light bulbs.
the coins are not enough
i am sure. i remember though
once i lit a candle 
in a catholic church 
for twenty-five cents.
i can't think of what or who
i lit it for but maybe
that came to fruition.
maybe i gave up to easily of prayer.
then again, i leave spoons
as the foot of the mountain
each & every day. coins tossed
into a rattling void. 
clanging as they go down.
i hear their muffled voices
as they discuss the possibility
that this was for nothing.
i respond, "i can't think like that."
i would just cease to exist.
a potted frolic where i used to be.
my leaves ringing like bells.

particle mother

she is brushing the protons
from my hair & calling me
"sun light." i found my particle 
in a stack of hay. the fair came
to town with pigs the size
of our hunger. all of us
climbed inside one & let ourselves
feel as pink as we wanted to be.
a deflating moon. breathing air 
into a tire with a hole in it.
mother holding a teaspoon
of sugar & asking if we remembered
the ray gun. left in the car
with the rest of our texture.
i don't want to be made of pieces.
she took her rake across 
the back of a dead planet 
& called what came "son." 
detailed plans for a fourth child. 
i am the fourth child. 
bowls of her particles.
glossy like marbles. playing 
the thimble. a dice at the back
of my throat. she was there 
with all the memorabilia:
bobble heads & billboards.
asking us to go panning for gold
in our own bodies. there i was
as a fracture. there is was
as the pearl earring 
another grandmother wore 
to her grave. i want to not believe
in the law of conservation of matter.
give me more than we could ever hold.
my particle mother holding sand
& trying her best to keep it
from slipping out of her palms.
she weeps & says, "this was
supposed to be you." i am also
not quit & never will be "me."
instead, i am the fluctuating sum.
what had been pressed.
the past returning as a new 
masquerade of pen caps 
& ground bones. she is trying
to piece a child together
in her tool shed chest. 
he always comes out a girl. 

clone

we took turns with the madwoman attic
& sewed birds together 
to make angels. i have nothing but
the process of cell divison.
god's pocket knife he used
to section & core us like apples.  
one self with her face made of mirrors 
& another who walks in sneakers 
all through the night. i want to know 
how many of myself i can keep. 
bird cages for my hands. feeding them
fish food & gold shavings. delicate balance
between myself & a certain version.
admitting to a friend i sometimes see
men who aren't there. some of them 
are clones & others are hat men. 
tall as the ceiling--their hats
grazing light fixtures. once, a chandelier
grew from both of our tongues.
miniature guests gathered beneath.
i am always inviting people into my body.
it is compulsive. i meet someone & i think
"i would make a good living room."
the tv is on in the background.
sitting the clone in front to occupy them.
i used to think i would give a clone
all the worst of my life to complete.
instead, i find myself treating her/him
as a child. i brush my clone's hair.
bring bowls of cherries to their feet.
tell them they are beautiful. don't we all
want to hear we are a replica? 
nothing original to our suffering, 
just a new pair of shoes & a new 
parking lot & a new pair of glasses.
i tell her she needs to clear out.
there are inspectors coming
to ensure i have remained whole. 
i stuff my clone in the hamper. 
tell her to breathe through her nose.
she becomes briefly a ball of socks.
the inspectors have teeth for eyes.
one molar each socket. i tell them
nothing at all. my body is 
a highway. coming & going.
they do not find her. i lie & say
"we are safe" even though she knows 
we are not & never. she crawls out
on all fours. i stroke her head
until i am just petting myself.